


Humpty Dumpty

by Twinkeeper



Series: The Spy Who Came in from the Mist [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Character Death Implied, Chris is the One for everyone, Ezra is a gorgeous James Bond, Gen, M/M, Magnificent Seven AU : Cold War spy stories, Multi, Or Philby and Burgess maybe, Still not sure how it ends, The pairing is implied, Very John Le Carre inspired, Vin and Ezra are Napoleon and Ilya, Vin is sort of George Smiley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:14:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twinkeeper/pseuds/Twinkeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2010, the world order was once again polarized.   The new era of Cold War had returned with a vengeance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humpty Dumpty

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a rip off from John Le Carre's novel "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", the most fascinating spy stories I have ever read (or maybe the first I have ever read and set the standard). Like all my (unfinished) stories, I write very slow, geographically challenged (I don't know anything about Europe and America landscape), and joined the fandom long after the madness died down and nobody interested anymore. Haha.

Chicago, January 2020

 

It had been a very cold day. Vin Tanner had risen too late after working too late the night before. Discovering he had run out of coffee, he queued at the grocer’s till he ran out of patience and decided to attend to his personal administration. He solemnly set off for the bank across the street, remembering the pile of his bills on his desk and decided that if it was the right time to consider setting up automatic payment arrangement then better did it when he was caffeine deprived in the middle of winter. He had walked no more than a few steps when he decided to turn around and walked toward the nearby bus shelter and stood in front of the only man sitting on the bench.

“Hello, Josiah,” said Vin. “Nice to see you.”

Josiah Sanchez’s gaze flicked up and down the street before slowly rested on Vin. He smiled, and Vin thought that the years hadn’t been kind to this peaceful man. Most of his friend’s hair was white, despite him probably only in his late forties, and he looked about twenty pounds lighter, sitting with a hunch Vin never knew he was capable of with hooded eyes who seemed muted instead of peaceful. But then again, none of them had survived without scars.

“Come on,” Josiah stood up. “I’ll buy you coffee.”

The coffee shop had already deserted at this time of day, and the two men spent a long minute mulling over their own drinks in comfortable silence.

“How many years has it been?” Josiah asked. He stared at Vin with undisguised fondness. “Four?”

“It was peaceful,” Vin nodded. “I kind of like it.”

The hooded eyes returned. “Heard you met someone.”

“Not anymore.”

They fell into another moment of contemplation, then some pleasant exchanges of information on their life. Buck was married, Josiah said, to a fiery red-headed he met in Mexico. It was not long, despite their good intentions. Probably had been a mistake from the very start, with all of them clinging to every possible way to find some kind of life, far removed from the one they were all running away from. He was transferred to Asia’s branch a year later, and as far as Josiah’s knowledge, he was now in Indonesia.

“JD went for a graduate degree,” Josiah said. “Didn’t take long to get his doctorate.”

“What did he write for thesis?” Vin smirked.

“Some kind of information system in intelligence,” Josiah chuckled. “As far as I know, he was teaching the whole faculty about the whole meaning of it, instead of the other way around.”

“It’s a productive distraction,” Vin nodded. “Who else were leaving the service beside me and JD?”

“None.” There was a speculative gleam in Josiah’s eyes. “Nathan was Commander, now. He had been handling things well. Very organized, tidy, if you know what I mean. “

“I always figured you’ll be the one replacing Chris.”

There’s a painful moment of silence. Vin realized that his hand suddenly started to shake, and quickly stammered back. “I mean.. uh..”

Josiah raised his hand for a peaceful gesture. Both men knowing now that the scar was still there, and the forbidden name was still too forbidden to say among them.

“The new head took a liking on Nathan, so he got the job. With Buck across the pond, you and JD gone, then I am now running errands.”

Vin felt his throat seized closed. “What about Ezra?”

Josiah stared at him. It was clear that he was trying to see what’s inside Vin’s head now, since the subject of Ezra had always been a sore point in Vin’s case.

“Ezra was born for this, you know that,” Josiah said. “So he was now up in Washington. Thrived in being a bureaucrat. I heard they all love him.”

So, Vin thought, Ezra was also no longer among them. He might be promoted, but it was still a fact, that he’s also out from the circulation. Him, JD, and Ezra. All running away as far as possible. Maybe Buck too to some extent.

“So,” Vin sipped on his cup. “Who send you to see me?”

Josiah smirked, looking amused. “Travis.”

Vin stared incredulously. “Is he alive again?”

Josiah barked with laughter, “You can say that. But, not exactly. I can see that you’ve been doing pretty good, so there is no doubt now. Come. I’m taking you to see Ezra.”

 

\--oOo—

 

To say that he and Ezra had a complicated relationship was an understatement. The man was his rival, through and through in every possible way, yet professionally no one can have a better pairing than this two. Ezra was the one Vin knew could fully depend on during any operations back in the old days, and he knew that the feeling was mutual. They understood each other very well. Vin was probably the only one knowing the deeply layered Ezra, full of contradictions under the flashy, flamboyant exterior not many were able to penetrate, and Ezra knew the molten lava just under the calm surface of Vin Tanner no one had expected. They should have been soulmates, many people had joked about, and only both Vin and Ezra knew that it would never happen. They were the best of friends for the whole world to see, but they never hated anybody more than each other.

And now, they were about to see each other again for the first time, since the elephant that had been always sitting between them were supposed to be gone from their life for good. Which, of course, was not true at all.

Josiah took a driver with him. Peter Ansley, a young rookie four years back that Nathan took a liking, and apparently had risen in rank quite significantly, considering once they were all confined inside the car Josiah started talking and asking questions no one else should have listened yet apparently did not matter in the presence of him.

“Once Travis died and you took a flight, people in Home Affairs disbanded the Circus. You know that, right? Well, you remember then that we usually worked in regions. Europe, Asia, Africa, with Travis sat in the center and pulling of the strings. Right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not what had happened now. Everything operational now is under one arm. That was the Agency Station. All regional juju men are gone. They were now only operational officers. Which makes Buck only an errand boy, instead of a warlord. Pairings are only field officers. None will ever be the legendary Tanner-Standish. The Station ran by Nathan, and me as the number two. Travis position was eliminated. Nobody wants another messiah, rampaging in secrecy no one else can control. Decisions should be consulted to Washington, hence why Ezra is now over there. So, yes. Nathan is pretty much Nathan. A Circus Commander yet will never making decision by himself. Never will and never can be a Chris Larabee.”

Vin tried not to flinch.

The car finally turned off the road and were passing over gravel. Vin sighed. It took a long time for him to drift as far away as possible, yet he knew that it was only a matter of time before he would go back to circulation. The pull was too great. However, it was still a shock to know that the safe house was only twenty minutes ride away from his new apartment. Josiah looked at him with understanding and lead him inside.

The safe house was unremarkable in this neighborhood. A little mansion with huge oaks and thickened bushes up front, and enough room at the front yard to held several cars. It looked hidden and unnoticeable. By the looks of things, Vin knew that this house was only recently being set up as a safe house. When he stepped inside, he noticed the ceiling and wall covered completely with gorgeous wooden paneling, a beautiful shield which probably hid anti-radar or sound-barrier, or something like that. At least, he couldn’t make a phone call, since his cell beeped softly announcing the disappearance of any communication signal.

Josiah led him to a small study, where the walls were lined with books, and the end of the room had a bay window that faced the inner court. There, leaning against it with his back facing the room, was Ezra Standish. He was dressed with his customary elegance. A dark suit, which fitted him perfectly, almost looked like being taken directly from a page of style magazine. 

It was always kind of an annoyance for Vin; a field partner who looked more like a fashion model or movie star and often acted like one too. It seemed Ezra cherished the romantic notion of high profile, invincible spies who had presence, when they were supposed to be almost invisible. For some reason, it worked, despite Vin’s reluctance. Their unwanted legendary status had been proven to be more advantageous and useful. They easily won friends, defectors, invaluable information, and apparently to Ezra, career advance, a top officer at both the Foreign Service and Department of Defense at the mere age of thirty six. If this had made them easy target and resulted in much risky life than average was never a thing to be seriously considered. It actually made them even more larger than life, a thing that even Vin had been secretly thrilled.

Vin stood silently, while Josiah watched them curiously. Without warning, Ezra suddenly turned himself around, all of him at once like a statue being slowly swiveled, and fixed his gaze on Vin. Then he grinned, so that his eyebrows went straight up like a clown’s, and his face became absurdly young and beautiful.

“Well, I must say that this is a happy reunion.”

Vin, perfectly immune to all kinds of charm from Ezra, probably the only one in the world, nodded silently and walked straight to the nearby chair and sat himself comfortably. He heard some greetings being exchanged from Josiah and Ezra, and pleasantly realized that he, indeed, felt more relaxed. 

Ezra sat facing him. They both exchanged subdued smiles. 

“I suggest that we should skip the pleasantry and goes straight to the point,” Josiah said. “I believe Vin does not fully enjoying his retirement, and that he does miss us like a sore tooth.”

Ezra talked straight through him as if Josiah never spoke, “How are you, Vin? Time had been gentle for you.”

“A little rough here and there,” Vin said and nodded to Josiah. It was rather uncomfortable, the balance among them now, with Josiah clearly reluctant to acknowledge that Ezra was technically his superior now, and both men were unsure about him. 

A slight cloud passed Ezra’s eyes, and Vin suddenly realized exactly what was inside his head at the moment. He recognized the old bond creaking and starting to reconnect again. “It’s a little rough here and there for you, too, I believe?”

This time, Josiah tactfully stayed silence. 

“I manage,” Ezra nodded. And there it went, out in the open, the thing that always both bound and tear them apart, a secret yet almost everyone in the whole Circus knew. A man that had always been between them, who had long perished yet still haunting them as intense as the day they lost him. 

“Nathan had too big shoes to fill,” Josiah offered peacefully. “But he was patience enough to wait until all of you come together. Eventually.”

But it would not be the same, Vin thought. We might come together, but who could handle reunion of strangers? As far as Vin knew, they had all turned into somebody else. Completely. Even he was not so sure about Josiah, and Josiah treated him carefully while obviously projected polite ignorance over Ezra. 

The door suddenly opened, and with surprise Vin watched Peter Ansley entered and locked the door.

“Pete,” Ezra nodded then turned toward Josiah. “I assume no introduction is needed, Josiah?”

Josiah’s voice was soft, “Ansley here was coming from Hongkong. He actually served under Buck at the moment.”

Peter Ansley, who had been silent during the whole trip with them settled into a chair. Despite his obvious young age, the man had an odd aging face, with sunken cheek and hollow eyes. Vin felt himself shivered involuntarily.

“Go on, Pete,” Ezra said. “Tell Vin.”

Ansley slowly leaned forward and clasped both hands on the table.

“It happened around six months ago,” he began. “Things had been quiet. Very quiet. Then out of the blue came a flash recquisition from Seoul.”

It had been a small entourage of Chinese trade delegation, said Ansley. Three people watching for some electrical goods being shipped outside of Pusan. One of the delegates was stepping wide, visited bar joints and nightclubs, then he had a heart attack. He died in the hospital a day later, but not before asking permission to have some local woman visited and accompanied him during his final moments.

“The thing is, he was never once willing to disclose any contact number or address of his delegation to the hospital staffs, and they decided to honor his wish of secrecy. Of course this came quickly through the grapevine, and since we kind of already covered for them since the first day they arrived, standard procedure, if you know what I mean, we realized that the man had been prepared to defect. We sent words, and Buck quickly came to make a site inspection. In the meantime, it was us who finally alert the rest of those delegation members.”

“The woman was a mistress, of course. She had nothing to say, and Buck quickly ruled her out as something valuable. We released her, and decided that whatever important in this woman was in her gestures. She must have been requested by the dying man to do some errands, so Buck was shadowing her while I covered the delegation, which, to our surprise, agreed to wait for autopsy procedures and heading back home with the body. That, we believe, gave them around two more days to stay in Pusan.”

Josiah threw in: “The delegation’s visa was for thirty days, something only the Prime Minister allowed to have, and they have already spent around five days in Korea.”

Ansley nodded and continued, “The two men had been diligent officials. Out of the hotel at eight, spend the rest of the day in the factory warehouse, seaports, and related offices. Came back around nine, and stayed inside the hotel for the rest of the evening. They never talked to each other, let alone gossiping, no cell phones, never make contact to hometown. All transcripts of interceptions had been clear. Once Josiah informed us that they had thirty days, we realized that these are high-ranked officials disguising themselves as mere tradesmen.”

“The goods?” Vin asked.

“Excavators, building equipments, pipes. We have sent for Pentagon to check this out, since they should be better with deciphering this kind of thing. If the Chinese wants to build super sophisticate missile or weapon with this, then it will be their jurisdiction to follow up,” Josiah explained.

“Which is why I got in the picture,” Ezra smiled. “Go on, Pete.”

“When the first man hospitalized and no one informed his whereabouts to these two men, they lay low. Stayed in the hotel all day, yet one was confined inside his room, the other circulated. This man, let’s just call him Cheng, stayed a few hours in the lobby, then the coffee shop, and once night came, went to the hotel’s bar. At nine he went up to his own room, and no communication had been exchanged with outside source. Cheng and his colleague had brief discussion about whether they should check on hospitals and police stations but decided to wait for another day. Then, of course, the next day we informed about his colleague’s death.”

Ansley stopped for a moment. 

“Apparently, Cheng decided to leave all the official business, you know, processing their colleague’s body, to his friend. Him, oddly, stayed in the hotel. With the same routine. Lobby, coffee shop, then bar. This time, he even got himself a little drunk. When the night came and his friend returned to the hotel, he went out. He went to the bar, the one where the dead man got his heart attack, and sat there. Silently, drinking occasionally, being a wallflower, a thing that seemed to be natural for these men, and being completely invisible. So I asked myself. What is this all about?”

“Then Buck called. Informed us that he was now on his way to Yangoon,” Ansley continued. “He mentioned about something big. A real livestock is on his way.”

Stock meant sale or exchange with another intelligence service, usually small-time defectors handled by scalp-hunters, lower ranks of field officers. Livestock meant for important, high rank intelligence officers, which was extremely rare. Since the past ten years of Cold War, only one livestock had crossed, and it had cost the Allies hundreds of lives, including the elite of Circus. The success did not last long, though. The livestock lived only a month and died in an assassination plot against one of the most intricate protection scheme in history. A huge scandal that rocked the intelligence world, and declared to the world that even the most sophisticate empire of Circus, the most impenetrable intelligence agency in the whole western world, had holes and weaknesses.

Vin glanced at the other occupants in the room, and noticed the steely gaze in both Ezra’s and Josiah’s eyes. No one had ever doubted Buck. If he said there was a livestock on the way, then livestock it would.

“It’s the small things, you know,” Ansley continued. “Just the way Cheng sat. He had the pick of the exits and the stairways; he had a fine view of the entrance and the action; he was left-handed and covered by a right-hand wall. Cheng may look plain, but he was professional. There was no doubt about it, and he was waiting for something. A connection, package, or just trailing on some coat, maybe wanting to get a pass from some small-time scalp-hunters, who knew. Yet, it’s also clear that he only did it now because he was replacing the dead man. Then, with Buck out of sight, I had to wonder what to do. This was no feat for scalp-hunter, since after the reorganization we were no longer had the resource to work on double agents. I had to contact Nathan Jackson fast, otherwise we would lose him in the next twenty four hours.”

“Then I came,” Josiah said. “Ansley here just about to contact Nathan when I arrived.”

“Took me by surprise.” A hint of amusement leaked from Ansley. The first real emotion Vin saw from him.

“I came because of Buck,” Josiah continued. “That’s a whole other story, so Ansley should finish his first.”

Ansley nodded. “Armed with some understanding that the dead man was most probably preparing to defect, I had to decide whether to work on Cheng as another possible defector. That was a stupid idea, I know, but I just could not help feeling that it was the right thing to do.”

“Stupid indeed,” Ezra pointed that out.

“I had no choice but came up to him directly.”

Josiah fidgeted, and Vin did not blame him. During their time, there had to be ways more clever than that. It was like jumping in the middle of a bullfight wearing red shirt. 

“You are lucky, you know that, don’t you?” Josiah sighed. “Go on.”

“I took a gamble. If Cheng knew who his contact was, I would think of something along the line of broken links. Maybe a lamp-lighter covering for the scalp-hunter. But somehow I doubt that. The dead man was adamant in not involving any of his delegates, so I was sure Cheng did not know who he was supposed to meet. In fact, the moment he saw me, he was subdued yet reckless. Looked like someone ready to commit suicide, you know. He did not care if I was the right person or not. He just wanted to cross the bridge. Considering that he had gambled his life over some flimsy hunch, I began to think that this man was an amateur. ”

Ansley was not exactly wrong. Once he secured Cheng, he realized that all this man needed to do was to contact a relative living in Canada. They had his son, he said. He had missed him terribly and if there was a slight chance for a reunion he would do it on the spot. The opportunity came when he started to realize that his late colleague was preparing to defect.

“Initially, he just wanted to know the link his friend was going to connect. But his friend died before the information was revealed. And there he was. He even showed me that he had taken a cyanide pill inside his mouth. If I was a double agent and would take him back to China, all he had to do was just swallow it. I thought, what the hell. Why not? So I took him to the safe house, and suddenly there was Josiah.”

All eyes went to Josiah. 

“Where is Cheng now?” Vin asked Ansley and Josiah. The two men exchanged glances, and Josiah sighed heavily, “At the bottom of the sea, I believe.”

“Like I said before, the reorganization had made us unable to provide necessary resources for defection. Especially the likes of Cheng, who had nothing to gain Washington’s attention. So there was a time gap, and enough for the other delegate to alert Beijing.”

“They plucked him from the safe house?” Vin raised his eyebrows. Ansley looked guilty, “You can say that.”

“The man knew that he could be stranded in Korea for more time than he could tolerate,” Josiah said. “Once he realized that we had to wait for Washington’s approval, he went ballistic and left.”

“Just like that,” Ansley nodded. “Next thing I know the body and the only delegate left were flying back to Beijing in a flight that also brought a severely dying man. You know, a man wholly wrapped in bandages with two burly male nurses shadowing him.”

“We had thought that nothing would come out from it,” Ansley continued. “Yet, something that Cheng had said made me wonder.”

Apparently, Cheng’s eligibility to get a thirty days visa was a result of a scam. 

“He had a close friend, apparently a lady friend, who was assistant to a former Red legman. She helped him work around the visa, since obviously she had access for this. ”

Vin leaned forward. Only a real handful of Circus men knew something about Red. A cunning, most secretive head of Eastern Block intelligence. The real adversary of Travis, where only Travis knew what he had looked like. Nobody knew his real name, but both side of the continents knew that he was the master mind of all the greatest conspiracies made by the Eastern Bloc. Red only worked with fewer than five trusted people. These people were called legmen. No one knew about the existence of legmen until one became the first Circus’ livestock and managed to defect for a month.

“Cheng insisted that this lady friend knew something was up and that she was very, very frightened when she accidentally shared some top secret info to Cheng. You see, Cheng realized that none of us had taken him seriously and he tried very hard to convince us otherwise. He kept insisting that this secret was one that should go directly to head of Circus and should not be shared to anyone else.” Ansley stopped for a moment. 

“Again, it’s my instinct, you know? To most of us, Cheng came out very silly. A man pretending to fit livestock qualification, which deserved nothing more than a mere recognition. Yet, it’s the way he kept on insisting. It disturbed me greatly. He kept saying that no one in Circus should be trusted.”

If Cheng insisted that nobody in Circus should be trusted, then how did he know that the head of Circus was the right person to endorse his information? Ansley had asked. This line of thought apparently broke Cheng down. The next day, he just went away, and no one in the safe house stopped him.

“Josiah’s turn now,” Ezra said suddenly, startling Vin a little.

“It’s news from Buck,” Josiah said. “His came from the old letterbox, so I knew immediately that this was one hell of a news and only directed to me.”

And that, according to Ezra, was highly irregular. Since the reorganization, letterboxes for top ring of the Circus should be accessible to the head, its deputy, and Pentagon. The fact that Buck managed to conceal the presence of the old one was a thing to admire, the fact that he had used it and given only to Josiah was a thing that raised alarm.

“He only mentioned two other names,” Josiah said. “Ezra, and you, Vin. Since Ansley was the one maintaining Buck’s old letterboxes, he was automatically in.”


End file.
